In an orthopaedic surgery to replace part or all of a patient's joint with a prosthetic implant, a portion of the implant receiving bone is prepared to closely match the mating surfaces of the implant. During an orthopaedic surgery to replace a knee joint, the distal end of the femur is prepared to accommodate a femoral knee component and the proximal end of the tibia is prepared to accommodate a tibial component.
In the preparation of the femur, for example, one or more milling templates are placed adjacent the distal femur in a specific order to resect portions of the femur in succession. These milling templates are generally individually aligned by the surgeon with reference to specific anatomic landmarks and a guide platform connected to an intramedullary rod. At times and in particular situations, the surgeon may wish to either utilize either a milling device or a cutting device to resect the bone. Presently, the surgeon has a choice of which device or technique to utilize, but for each of technique, a separate milling template or cutting guide has to be individually fixated and oriented to the bone.
What is needed in the art is a system allowing a cutting guide to be used in conjunction with a milling template without removing the milling template.